Is it worth me time?

Is it worth me time?

LoL may now be officially available for the Mac OS, but how does it run. Is it anything compared to that unofficial boojie client, or does the new Mac Client truly compete with its Windows counterpart?

Playing League on my Mac with Boot Camp (native Windows client) and even Parallels (Windows client in a virtual machine side-by-side with Mac OS X) still performs better than the native Mac client. Even in the virtual machine I can run League with all settings maxed (including shadows) and it pegs 60FPS* with vsync on at 1920x1200 (my external display's native resolution).

With that said, on the native Mac client I average 55 FPS on my 15-inch MacBook Pro (2012), every setting maxed except shadows (shadows off), running at 1920x1200. This is acceptable, to me. It's just that there's still something that makes the Windows version run better, even when running in a virtual machine.

Older Macs, or Macs with Intel HD graphics, might be a different story. But on a recent Mac with a discrete-class GPU (2011 or newer, Radeon or Geforce) I would expect results similar to mine.

* Edit on 3/31: See my later reply. I must have been playing with shadows on Medium. More details and video further down on this page.

Playing League on my Mac with Boot Camp (native Windows client) and even Parallels (Windows client in a virtual machine side-by-side with Mac OS X) still performs better than the native Mac client. Even in the virtual machine I can run League with all settings maxed (including shadows) and it pegs 60FPS with vsync on at 1920x1200 (my external display's native resolution).

With that said, on the native Mac client I average 55 FPS on my 15-inch MacBook Pro (2012), every setting maxed except shadows (shadows off), running at 1920x1200. This is acceptable, to me. It's just that there's still something that makes the Windows version run better, even when running in a virtual machine.

Older Macs, or Macs with Intel HD graphics, might be a different story. But on a recent Mac with a discrete-class GPU (2011 or newer, Radeon or Geforce) I would expect results similar to mine.

He is using a virtual machine ! Virtual machines ain't for gaming, I've never seen not even a youtube video of a virtual machine on mac running LoL @60 FPS, not even other low quality games with higher FPS. He is lying.

He is using a virtual machine ! Virtual machines ain't for gaming, I've never seen not even a youtube video of a virtual machine on mac running LoL @60 FPS, not even other low quality games with higher FPS. He is lying.

LoL's system requirements are ridiculously low. They've also made some amazing strides in virtual machine gaming in the last few years, there's some interesting benchmarks out there if you're not too busy making wild accusations and statements

He is using a virtual machine ! Virtual machines ain't for gaming, I've never seen not even a youtube video of a virtual machine on mac running LoL @60 FPS, not even other low quality games with higher FPS. He is lying.

I did this on my 2011 15" MacBook Pro until the Mac client entered open beta. He's telling the truth, and you are wrong.

You don't know what you're talking about. You should feel bad, your parents should feel bad, and the world should shun you.

OK, so I fired up my Windows 8 VM for the first time since Daylight Savings switched, and derped around with Fiora for 10 minutes. I guess I normally played with Medium shadows. Very High shadows was getting 55FPS with just minions around. Medium shadows was getting pretty consistent 60FPS during laning, slight drop to 55FPS during First Blood, with some very brief drops to 45FPS during a team fight (average 55FPS).

The point is, the Windows client in a VM is still performing better (same frame rates, higher detail settings) than the native Mac client on the same machine.

YouTube video: < link >
Game starts at 2:30
Laning starts at 4:15
Fight leading to first blood at 6:00
Fiora and MF ult each other to death at 8:50
Team fight bot lane starts at 12:40